VATICAN RESTRUCTURING GETS UNDERWAY
The Vatican’s spokesman has confirmed that the Pope and his group of eight cardinal advisors have begun discussing the Congregation for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
The eight-member Council of Cardinals appointed by Jorge Mario Bergoglio to advise him on the government of the universal Church and plan the reform of the Roman Curia, met for the second time today, in a meeting in the Vatican that will run till Thursday. This morning’s discussions opened with the subject of Curia reform, starting with the Vatican dicastery that is responsible for the liturgy. Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi confirmed this in a news briefing in the Vatican newsroom at 1 pm today.
The Pope’s “G8” held its first meeting on Curia reform in October. With the second meeting that began today, the reform process is in full swing. Pope Francis’ reform has three aims. The first, which is already underway, is for the Church in Rome to be more receptive to requests and information that arrive from local Churches across the world; the second, which will be dealt with over the next couple of days, is to rationalise the Curia’s structures and the third, which is more of a long term affair, is rethinking the Vatican State.
In an interview with Italian Catholic news fortnightly Il Regno, Honduran cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, said that “during the pre-Conclave meetings the general feeling was that the Pope needed to establish closer contact with the local Churches. The College of Cardinals stressed the importance of giving cardinals living outside the Vatican the chance to make their voices heard. Many of us believed pope Benedict XVI was not fully in the know about what was going on. The Vatileaks scandal highlighted the need for an improvement in the communication of information. Some documents never seemed to have reached the Pope. The idea was to create group of cardinals from across all continents who could communicate directly with the Pope instead of information passing through the Nunciatures and the Secretariat of State. When Francis was elected Pope he tried to act on these suggestions.”
The Argentinean Pope took two measures to improve communication between Rome and the rest of the Catholic world. The first was to create the Council of Cardinals. This is coordinated by Madariaga and its members include Giuseppe Bertello (Italy), Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa (Chile), Oswald Gracias (India), Reinhard Marx (Germany), Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya (Congo), Sean Patrick O’Malley (US), George Pell (Australia), and the group’s secretary, Mgr. Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano, Italy. No specific dates were initially defined for the group’s meetings but were eventually set for October, December and this coming 17 and 18 February.
“This will speed up the Council’s work, particularly in this initial phase,” a Vatican statement reads. The second aim of Bergoglio’s “devolution” plan is to enhance the role of the Synod. After the nomination of the new secretary, Mgr. Lorenzo Baldisseri, this was the subject that received most attention in the Council’s October meeting. The Holy See sent Episcopal Conferences around the world a questionnaire on the family which touches on subjects such as same-sex marriage, contraception, common-law marriage and communion for remarried divorcees. This is ahead of the Extraordinary Synod due to be held in 2014 and an Ordinary Synod in 2015, which Francis has decided to hold in order to review the Church’s pastoral care programme on the above issues. The Synod Secretariat will meet before this, in the last week of February, to examine the responses given in the questionnaire.
February’s meetings begin with the gathering of the 15 Member Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organisational and Economic Problems of the Holy See; then the “G8” will meet and cardinals from across the world will meet the Pope in Rome on the 20th and 21st; finally, on the 22nd and 23rd the Pope will celebrate his first Consistory for the creation of new cardinals. Other changes that could be made as part of the Holy See’s plans to decentralise the Church, could involve more power being given to national Bishops’ Conferences.
“The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit.” Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated,” The Pope wrote in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”.
“The first thing we discussed was the Synod,” Cardinal Maradiaga said at the festival of the Church’s social doctrine in the Italian city of Verona. “We are now examining all comments made in relation to the dicasteries. We will probably be working on this in December’s meetings,” he said ahead of the Council’s three-day meeting which began today. It is likely that some pontifical councils will be suppressed or merged and a new Congregation for the People of God may be established and put in charge of a number of areas. What is certain is that Francis wants the Church to be less Rome-centred, with fewer cardinals and fewer business and money-related scandals.
The Pope has already launched a review of the Vatican’s economic structures. He has had the IOR’s top dogs and the executives of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA) removed; he has set up a Commission for Reference on the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and the Commission on Economic Structures, appointing his trusted secretary, Mgr. Alfred Xuereb, as his delegate in both commissions; he has continued the efforts to ensure that the Holy See’s financial activity complies with international standards, particularly those aimed at preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism, under the surveillance of Moneyval – the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism; he has entrusted Promontory Financial Group and Ernst&Young with controlling the IOR-APSA and the Governorate’s accounts respectively. The Pope also wants heads of dicasteries, Apostolic Nuncios and cardinals to have easier access to him. Internal coordination needs to improve.
The Vatican’s new Secretary of State, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, is the cornerstone of this new project. This experienced diplomat is highly esteemed by Bergoglio and will be co-presenting a book with Cardinal Madariaga in the Agostinianum on Thursday evening. The Secretary of State needs to go back to being a “papal secretary”, paving the way to a re-evaluation of the Pope’s role who should be seen as the Bishop of Rome more than as a Vatican monarch.
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/curia-riforma-reform-30377/
Catholic4Life 